So, when I ran across the panel project at the thrift store I snatched it up. I love the overstuffed books as they can be used as...well as books (stater of the obvious I know *laugh*), to help foster a love of reading in a young child, but can also be abused without side effects.
This is a simple counting book that goes from one to ten and features baby animals, so I figured this would be a good panel project to get (as we end up with a lot of babies being born in the family it seems).
For the batting for this I used a mixture of different fleece remnants I had, primarily red, which gave the pages a bit of a pink/fleshy tint to them, but it worked out okay :).
But man, can I say that this was one of the worst printed panel projects I've ever done? The directions weren't great by any stretch, none of the lines lined up right so some of the pages got cut off at the very edge, it required a 1/8th seam allowance which is small for a project like this and the middle lines were printed so badly that nothing would have worked if I had sewed on the line (the pages would have been horribly misaligned) so I had to figure out a new line and just figure that the lines would look off with not a whole lot to be done about it. And it still ended up coming out a bit off, but at least it's a lot better than it was.
Total Cost of Gift: 1.00 for the panel.
Total Time to Make Gift: About three hours as I fought with the pattern to make the book look okay.
Very cute book and at a great price too!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I have decided that I am going to make a throw pillow for my teen niece. I am out of stuffing which is rather expensive to buy, so I was on the fence about it. Then I went to good ol' Walmart today and found a brand new standard sized pillow for $3. They had the little pre-made throw pillow forms in the craft section for $7! I'm going to cut the $3 pillow in half and sew the ends to make 2 throw pillow forms. Then I'll custom make the pillow covers to fit them. I have some flannel fabric I bought super cheap at the thrift store to use for the covers. I'll probably give one to my niece and one to my daughter's respite worker (who's currently a University student). Two gifts on the cheap...WOOHOO! Now if I can just decide on those boys, I'd be set for Christmas gifts.
Nice. I never thought to buy a new pillow and make it into throw pillows. That's a great idea!
ReplyDeleteYeah those pillow forms just make me flinch at the price. Jo Ann's starts at about 7.00 but goes up to over 20.00. For a PILLOW FORM! That, to me, is crazy.
How about making your nephews pillow cases with some cool looking male oriented flannel or something and then monogram the very edge with their initial in some masculine color. Pillow cases alone are really expensive anymore new and it would at least be useful :).
Not a bad idea. I do have some nice plaid flannel that is very masculine. That just might work!
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